His name was Marcus Webb.

He worked in the editorial department of a small literary magazine that had recently expressed interest in running a profile on Elowen's work, and he had the warm, slightly theatrical energy of a man who had decided long ago that charm was a form of competence. He was genuinely interested in her work — she could tell the difference — and he was also, gradually and with increasing obviousness, interested in her.

She noticed this at coffee on a Wednesday, when he laughed slightly too long at something she said and left his hand near hers on the table. She filed it away as possibly nothing and returned to talking about her chapter structure.

She mentioned it to Sofia that night. Mentioned it to Lumina the following morning, in the way she had started sometimes using the game as a journal — typing updates to the in-app Lucien the way she might write in a private notebook. The real Lucien did not have access to the Lumina interface, obviously. They were two separate things.

She had almost stopped believing that.

The editorial meeting on Thursday brought Marcus Webb back again, this time with a photographer for preliminary shots of her workspace. He was attentive during the shoot, making suggestions that were genuinely useful, which made it difficult to be annoyed by the attention. After the photographer packed up, he stayed an extra twenty minutes.

"I wanted to ask," he said, "whether you'd be interested in dinner. Not about the piece. Just—dinner."

Elowen looked at him.

He was perfectly nice. He was warm and funny and he'd read her work carefully enough to discuss specific panels.

"That's kind," she said, carefully.

"But?"

"I'm — it's complicated. Right now."

He nodded, and it was a gracious nod, the kind that meant he'd heard the answer even through the diplomatic packaging. "Fair enough."

She walked him out.

Standing in the hallway after, she felt the specific quality of relief that came from a decision made in the body before the mind had fully voted.

The hallway was empty.

Except — when she turned toward her apartment — Lucien was coming out of the elevator.

He had a paper bag from the bakery two streets over, which he brought sometimes on Thursday afternoons because she had mentioned once, in passing, that Thursdays were difficult and croissants helped.

He stopped when he saw her.

She stopped when she saw him.

They looked at each other for a moment in the clean, quiet way of two people who had been occupying each other's peripheral vision for long enough that running into each other in their own hallway felt both ordinary and charged.

"You had a meeting," he said.

"A photographer and an editor, yes."

"I saw the equipment in the hallway earlier." He looked toward the now-closed door of her apartment. "He stayed longer than the shoot."

It was not, technically, a question.

Elowen leaned against the wall.

"He asked me to dinner," she said.

Lucien's expression did not change.

That was its own tell: the absolute control of it, the way he kept his face perfectly neutral with an effort that she could only detect because she had spent enough time studying him in moments of genuine calm.

"And?" he said.

"And I said no."

A beat.

Something altered infinitesimally around his eyes.

"You didn't have to," he said.

"I know I didn't have to." She looked at him. "I wanted to."

The paper bag was still in his hand.

"Why?" he asked.

She pushed off the wall and walked toward him. Not confrontationally. Just — toward him, the way she'd been moving toward him for weeks in ways that were no longer entirely accidental.

"Because saying yes to other people's dinners was going to require significantly more emotional energy than I have right now," she said. "And I have very specific opinions about where I'd rather spend that energy."

She took the paper bag from his hand.

Peeked inside. Two croissants. One almond, one plain.

"Thank you," she said. "Come in."

He followed her inside.

Sunny received him with the uncontained enthusiasm of an animal who found the emotional undercurrents of human interaction extremely interesting.

Elowen put the kettle on.

Lucien stood in her kitchen doorway, hands in his pockets.

"Specific opinions," he said.

"Yes."

"About where you'd rather spend the energy."

"Correct."

"Would you like to clarify that."

She turned from the kettle to look at him.

"Not today," she said. "But I think you already know."

He was quiet.

"I think," he said, very carefully, "I've been trying not to assume."

The honesty of that undid something in her chest.

"You're allowed to assume correctly," she said.

A long moment.

"Alright," he said.

She turned back to the kettle.

Outside, the city went on. Inside, the croissants waited on the counter, and Lucien stayed in the kitchen doorway, and Elowen decided that some conversations were worth having in pieces, slowly, at the right temperature.